ST-Ericsson U8500: 45 nm, 1.2 GHz, dual core, ARM Cortex A9

Forget everything you know about how fast smartphones are right now, because once you buy something with the dual core ST-Ericsson U8500 inside, then you’re going to have your face blown off. You’re looking at a chip manufactured on a 45 nm process packing 2 ARM Cortex A9 processors, each humming along at 1.2 GHz. That’s twice as fast as the iPhone clock for clock, and twice the number of cores, plus a generational leap ahead in terms of ARM architecture.

The U8500 supports recording video at 1080p resolution, taking 20 megapixel photos, 1024×768 resolution touch screen displays, has a HSPA+ radio included, and can last 120 hours while playing music, or 12 hours while playing 1080p video, all on a 1000 mAh battery.

No word as to when this chip will start sampling or start showing up in mobile phones. When a chipset company does that, that means you’re looking at roughly 1 to 2 years, closer to 2 years, before you can get your hands on a smartphone running this thing inside.

Making a wish, crossing my fingers: Post-silicon development for new arm implementations will speed up so that we’re under a year from eng sample to consumer product. May happen if Arm and the chip manufacturers get more involved.